1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image forming apparatus, an information processing apparatus configured to communicate with the image forming apparatus, a printing system including such apparatuses, and a control program for controlling the apparatuses, and a control method.
2. Description of the Related Art
In printing a document or a drawing generated by an information processing apparatus such as a personal computer, an application gives a print instruction to the printer. According to the instruction, print settings such as paper size, paper orientation, page layout, print method, color mode, and stamp setting are made via a user interface (UI) of a printer driver that is supported by the printer. Then, based on the print setting information, document data is converted by the printer driver into data in a data format that can be interpreted by the printer, and the converted data is transmitted to the printer and printed.
Further, if a user selects a specific printer in printing generated document data using a certain application, the application selects a printer driver that is supported by the printer. If the user makes detailed settings, the user starts a UI of the printer driver and makes the setting of each item. When all the print settings are completed, the application or the printer driver gives a print instruction to the printer. Such a system is intended for an information processing apparatus (OS) that allows common use of the printing system based on each application. After the OS selects the printer, the OS needs to start the UI of the printer driver that is supported by the selected printer.
Nowadays, the printer apparatus itself has various functions. Accordingly, a number of function settings that the UI of the printer driver needs to make is increasing. If the number of functions is increased, while various functions can be provided to the user, setting procedures become complicated.
In order to reduce the complexity of the above-described setting method, two methods are provided. Firstly, according to a technique of a printing system discussed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2002-287924, a print setting made by a user is represented by a printer icon and registered. This technique allows registration of multiple printer icons for each print setting. Thus, the user can select a printer icon that is appropriate for the printing. With this technique, a process for opening the UI of the printer driver can be avoided when the user makes the detailed setting.
Secondly, according to a technique discussed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2002-175164, a print setting made by a user using a UI of a printer driver is saved and registered as one item by the printer driver. The user starts the UI of the printer driver at the time of printing and selects an item that is appropriate for the purpose of the printing. In this way, although the user needs to start the UI of the printer driver, the user may select only the registered print setting and does not need to make detailed settings. Thus, usability is improved.
The printer driver examines whether print settings made by the user or the application (OS) are correct and also determines whether the settings are valid among each function. The former processing may be referred to as inspection processing of print setting while the latter may be referred to as conflict resolution processing.
If the number of items to be set regarding the printer driver is increased, an amount of information about the print setting is also increased, and the processing of inspection and conflict resolution becomes complicated. As a result, time necessary in processing the driver will be increased.